Ryan Adams and the hypocritical nature of fandom

I don’t suppose the world needs my thoughts on Ryan Adams but, hey, here they are anyway.

I’m not at all surprised, there’s the thing. I’ve been a fan of his music since ‘Heartbreaker’ came out in late 2000, I buy his new albums, I follow him on twitter, I’ve always rooted for him and wished him well, but I didn’t wake up to the article in the NYT about him and go “Oh, no, how can this be? Surely not Ryan Adams …”

Which I know makes me an enabler, to a tiny extent. Perhaps I knew, or suspected, enough about Ryan Adams, from scathing comments about him I’d read down the years from female musicians, to his regular self-pitying outbursts and invectives, to stories in music books and magazines, to just the very fact of how many creative women he seemed to be romantically involved with in quite an indiscreet, self-aggrandising way, so perhaps I knew enough about him not to be a fan of his music, certainly not to root for him.

Adams is an interesting case – he’s being held up today as a typical example of an enabled creepy powerful music biz man, but I’m not sure if that is true. I’ve rarely seen a musician I like be so pilloried as an individual, for most of their career.

From being an acclaimed golden boy at the start, with the release of Heartbreaker and then Gold, I saw the music press pretty rapidly turn against him, in a way that seemed quite odd, in that the quality of his releases didn’t seem to be dipping that much.

He was clearly a troubled individual, but it was also clear that a lot of the people that wrote about him found him to be an unbearable dick too. I kind of feel today, retrospectively, that some music journalists did their best not to enable him, to the extent that they could (being far more in the know than a mere music fan, albeit an attentive one, like myself).

But his success has continued and grown. Most record buyers don’t read the music press obsessively, so probably today’s news really is a shock to a lot of buyers of his records.

But his being “an arsehole” wasn’t all there was to him. An arsehole is very often perceived as being close to a little boy lost troubled genius, and I think a lot of music fans, male and female, root for their little boy lost troubled genius, hope they come good, are interested in how they express their pain. That’s the nature of rock music all too often.

Ironically, his music had moved on, from signs of genius early on to something much more like solid, reliable AOR. For many years, I’ve liked his stuff without loving it, though the troubled genius persona persisted. It has probably all worked together to serve him, but he pushed it too far to get away with it anymore.

Most of what he’s been accused of so far isn’t criminal, if any of it (as far as I can tell, that possibly criminal bit is dependent on different jurisdictions). But it’s massively gross, and that massively gross bit could clearly be read through the lines of what I’ve observed about him for almost two decades. So, maybe I chose not to read through those lines … I don’t know …

It’s a big topic at the moment. Should talented people (nearly always men) be “cancelled” because of some personal misdeed? The question is not really being phrased properly, but the answer is, naturally, somewhere between, hmmm, it depends, and, well, there’s a scale …

I’ll speak for myself. R Kelly is a good example. Everyone’s known for years that Kelly was completely creepy, that there was blatant criminality in his actions. Thankfully, I wasn’t a fan of R Kelly, and his most famous songs comfortably reflected that creepiness. She’s Got that Vibe, Bump’n’Grind …. Yuk … I mean, of course …

But then came ‘Ignition’ … which everyone loved, and I loved, because it’s fucking awesome … and also hardly creepy at all … so the R Kelly who did Ignition, I could kind of get on board with, and kid myself that, because this song wasn’t creepy and because lots of people loved it in a non-creepy way, this R Kelly might not be too criminally creepy, and was ok to have a little dance to (incidentally, the worst piece of DJing I ever saw, but also a living piece of art in exemplifying what I’m saying, was when I was at the disco at indie festival ATP a few years ago, and the floor was packed with people joyfully dancing to Ignition, before the DJ segued directly into Bump’n’Grind, and it cleared, in disgust, in, like, seconds.)

Now, I criticise myself. I knew. How could I even listen to Ignition? … but I guess I didn’t know … not all of it … I just suspected, so I cancelled R Kelly in a nuanced/self-serving way …

And that’s really how it is with all of them. My male faves across sport/music/film are really a litany of creeps, suspected and proved … sometimes it matters to me, sometimes it doesn’t, it kind of depends on a) how much of a fan I am and b) how deep I am into that fandom.

There are e.g. a couple of extremely famous sportsmen about whom significant wrongdoing (of different types) has been mooted recently. Now, these are men in whom I have not invested significant fandom. But I remembered, when these matters came up recently, that I’d come across hints about unpleasantness much earlier in their careers, and those hints probably took me away from fandom. Or maybe I’d never have been a fan of their anyway.

It’s definitely the case that if I find out about someone’s objectionableness early enough, it may make a difference, but then again, with Adams, I don’t really have that much excuse.

Whereas there are people (you probably knew who they are if you ever read anything by me) across sport/music/film who have, unquestionably/probably/possibly committed a variety of unpleasantnesses, whether criminal or not, but I am that much of a long fan of theirs that I have rationalised what I think about this and maintained my fandom.

I guess that’s the hypocrisy of it. It can matter. Definitely. Finding out something horrible about someone can definitely affect whether you’re a fan of theirs, but if the fandom is strong enough, it may well survive it, and we’ll either rationalise and accommodate it or turn a blind eye.

What’s the question, then? Will I stop listening to Ryan Adams now? Maybe that depends on what further comes out. There’s a hidden line. Maybe the fact that the arsehole always suspected is out in the open is enough in itself.

To be fair to "fans" (including myself), we are nearly always kept on the side of full knowledge which means we do not know the full extent of our idol's sins till the big reveal. We can retrospectively fit hints and tall tales into a pattern we should have recognised, but maybe that's not really our job.

From my point of view, there are two conflicting explanations for why sometimes I let people off the hook. On the one hand, there’s a certain naivete. I do not personally have anyone I am close to who is a terrible, creepy arsehole, so sometimes the regular depths of male behaviour (albeit powerful male behaviour) are still a surprise to me, that people who seem ok can be such blatant arseholes.

On the other hand, there’s the fact that in the all the film and rock bios I’ve been reading from a young age, elements of that kind of behaviour are so normalised, that I think I’ve learnt to take it on board when it comes to people whose work I admire.

Eg the debate of Bob Dylan the plagiarist has come up again recently. Now, I’m such a huge Bob Dylan fan that, though I take his probable misdeeds on board, I’ve essentially restructured my whole idea of what plagiarism is, or how much it is by definition unconscionable, for his benefit. Still love you, Bob, you wild forgivable male genius …

It's all hypocrisy, really. For so long it's felt like a necessary hypocrisy. Perhaps the positive thing that will happen is that we do not need that hypocrisy to still be fans of bad people, or perhaps we weill absolutely realise that we do.

For Now

This is called For Now, for now, though i think it wants a better title

FOR NOW

We caught our breath between the seasons, clasped

The dark the balm, the cold the calm before

The coming climbing death of dying, stones

All sinking back to mantle, creeping frost

Of blazing loss, each shock of black time-tide

At once; no breaks. And breathe. It’s fine. For now.

It’s autumn, bleak, then winter, sort of; spring

For now, holds ground, wet graceful bursts of safe

And trusted cycles stall the surge, for now.

We thaw and freeze, live as we please for now

Half-turned by dread but not so sold to flinch

At bliss. The sun, in June. Like this. This, love.

It lasts too long, but still, feels rich, feels strong.

The bloom, the blue. Only …the wasps are gone.

The blighted pests, the never blessed, till now,

Have flown their last, and so, unstung, we bask

Askance, dismiss, for now, the glimpse of drought

And pestilence ahead. How far? Not now.

Imagination fails – it must, I guess.

En masse, we pass, just rage in fits and starts

At arsonists as master racists, set

On laughing off the glaring truth, intent

On what? There must be something, mustn’t there?

A cause? There never was. Just carelessness,

Our common thread, our way to understand

How slow we were. We let the brambles grow.

We let the bastards in. How slow we’ve been.

Just carelessness – and inexactitude.

A narrow focus with a broad ideal,

The layers which never should be borne, erased.

We dig for what we want and keep on saying

We’ve found it, little Schliemanns razing Troy

Like savage Agamemnon never could,

Or lucky Olafs craving summer sun,

The kind of luck that’s not for everyone.

But let’s not let that lesson spoil our fun.

I practice stopping time. It works, I find,

To my surprise, once in a while, when art

Takes hold and sends me back and forth; and through

the prose, I’m past my conscious constant woes -

and worse - and via the verse, I’ve learnt some poise,

some stolen threads of consolatory joy.

I recommend it – find your way to toy

With time’s appearance of intransigence,

Not quite so strict as it has us believe.

Find loopholes! There are billionaires, right now,

Who’re paying folk to prey on broken laws

And systems for their distant hideaways

In high retreat from what they caused and what

They still deny – they cheat, and they’ll succeed,

Why lie, but you can trade with time as well,

Find loopholes! Each their own. It’s not too late

To hold each day aloft, untouched by fear

And flood. It’s not too late to stop it yet

Perhaps… or not. I caught myself just then, beset

with hope, ignorant hope. I hold my breath

and minutes tick away. My trick … won’t stick.

I shut my eyes and suddenly I see

That Peter Crouch was stuck in Stoke for eight

Whole years. How can that be? A sleight of time …

Tricking me back. I thought I had some grasp

On that, but, whoosh, it’s gone, we’re through and past

The tipping points I marked with parker pen

Back then … still distant, not explicit, not

quite fixed, while now, though not quite imminent,

(I pray) it looms and prowls and marks the days

It haunts the news, diverts the dreams. I shut

My eyes and feel the tide, and lie I’m fine

Like Donald Crowhurst, beached and counting down.

I’m winning, here’s the data, here’s the chart

That shows I’m winning, don’t look closely, here’s

Our victory, end of history, end of times.

Oh God, I got the blues, the blue sky blues,

I got the blue sea blues, my God, my God,

We got the bluest blues we choose, oh God.

I cleared the pile of dirt behind the shed.

I dodged the slugs and slowworms on the grass.

I caught my breath before the summer came.

The Back Way

This is an attempy to write a sestina - it was quite fun to try and do, though a bit tricky ...

THE BACK WAY

He longed to be a cricketer on Kew Green

those weekend afternoons in summers past,

Would hope the car might stop for enough time

In traffic beyond the bridge. If all fell right,

He’d dream of how he’d learn the taste of beer

From Mortlake Brewery’s scents of malt and smoke.

A father’s car, set deep with Irish smoke

Fizzed through a Sunday morning’s London green.

They looked in wonder at the gleaming beer

Which lit the suburbs up as they buzzed past,

A unity, a city in the right

Repose of mind and golden glow of time.

Their mother took the back way every time

She’d learnt her routes to skirt the heavy smoke.

At Chalker’s Corner, she turned left then right.

She’d learnt, no longer red and blue and green,

To leave the high road to the young. The past

was drowning in a reservoir of beer.

Those river pubs which taught him love for beer

Unchanged through seasons, picturesque through time,

Reran key scenes from father’s chequered past

A pack of Prides, a tall tale and a smoke.

He sank into the evening’s cushioned green

And, mostly, bore no damage from the rite.

The boys are running moves to left and right

And bragging of their escapades in beer

On some south London park bench running green.

He’s counting down his youth, adrift in time

As curtained boys seek refuge for a smoke

And call out their contempt as they slouch past.

The tower blocks and pepper pot hang past

These children borne on tide of human right

To peace. The parallel woes lost in smoke

Are just a barren house of rows and beer.

They cross the bridge, the back way’s hope and time

And catch a minute’s cricket on Kew Green.

West London, past and present, full of beer

Which tastes just right when it arrives on time

In clouds of summer smoke on river green.

Comic Timing

Here's something called Comic Timing

COMIC TIMING

I learnt the trade between the waves of rage

Which came and went across decades; they forced

and shaped and drove the laughs in deep.

I had the knack, so tracked the tricks of hacks

And clowns, of Connolly clones, each Smith, each Jones.

I worked so hard and made my mark on boards

In towns the edgy legends feared to tread.

I told good jokes. I told them well. The laugh

Was all, for what it’s worth; it’s worth it all.

I made good friends, we shared and praised, and saved

Our scorn for those that sneered but never tried

What we spent years perfecting to the point

It only went awry, on average, two

Or three times out of ten. And then? Fuck them!

I had no badge, and no one asked my view

On Blair and Hague beyond the aptly vague

But crisply uttered gags I planned and pinned.

Some TV - five “live” minutes from the Ap-

ollo, or best, some neutered panel show.

I had my niche, “it’s stag do chic”, I read

Some broadsheet once declaim, but not with rage.

The country changed, of course, you know. And so

New waves drew lines not heeded until then

(as is the way, new lines much like old lines),

The laugh itself was not enough for some,

though most, from Leicester Square via Sevenoaks

to all the different Stokes, were the same folks

as ever; comedy was their escape

Though slightly shocked by jokes on rape and race,

they, if the pause was placed just so, would know

no ill intent was meant, and let go their reserve.

And yet, from Edinburgh, the message came

That politics was once again to be

Intrinsic to this age of comedy –

Now, which side of the laugh lines was I on?

I tried a while to fit the mould - I had

a nice skit on Farage, though gallingly

I was once told by some tattooed old boy

From Fleet that it was time someone stood up

For Nige, not like those so-called comics. Ah,

In truth, my shame was just the gag mistook.

I was indifferent to the slight itself.

There were, at once, so many young firebrands

Whose currency in comedy was some

New righteous fury, that there really was

No space for me outside the smaller halls

I thought I was a long way past; my heart

Was not in rehashing Ben Elton gags

To shrugging men of Kent and Kentish men.

I knew what worked still worked. I knew my crowd

Who’d roared out loud for years without being told

They had no right. I’ll give them niche, I’ll serve

The hidden heart of England, drawing up

A new receipt of tailored targets, from

The liberal elite to … well, I’m no

Jim Davidson but this man’s got to eat.

And now I’m filling theatres and I’ve half

A million twitter followers. I’m “the real

Guerrilla comic” says some hitherto

Disdained Spectator columnist, who wouldn’t

Know comedy from cruelty.  I tell jokes

Which people like, I tell him guilessly.

The headline! He says. If you like, I say.

The Agora

Here's a thing I wrote called the agora ...

THE AGORA

The pioneers aspired to recreate

The agora, safe and fair for one and all.

We learnt to thrive by blurring hope and hate.

A place to grow, to meet, to love, to mate

Where Cinderella does go to the ball

The pioneers aspired to recreate.

More all-embracing than the welfare state,

The multitude would heed the clarion call.

We learnt to thrive by blurring hope and hate.

The people boldly open up the gate

and gather in the universal hall

The pioneers aspired to recreate.

We choose the food, the fork, the knife, the plate,

We go in Saul, within an hour we’re Paul.

We learnt to thrive by blurring hope and hate.

The truth endlessly lost in the debate

The sunrise hidden by the deepening fall

The pioneers aspired to recreate.

We learnt to thrive by blurring hope and hate.

101 Faces - 20

OK, I'm going to finish this off. It inevitably ended up being less fun and less enlightening than I'd hoped - turns out my range of interests is pretty narrow. So, on that note, let's finish with a few obvious ones.

BILL WITHERS

Bill Withers - I love Bill Withers because he just dabbled with it. He had a life before and then a life after, and seems perfectly happy with that. I read a lovely interview with him where he said he was sitting in a diner and one of his songs was on and some women were talking about it and how much they liked his music, and he said "excuse me, madam, this was me" and she said "you're not Bill Withers, he was much darker than you" ... anyway, Bill's my way to also mention Kevin Rowland, who just seems almost too obvious - "Bill Withers was good for me, pretend I'm Bill and lean on me ..."

MIGUEL COTTO

Just love Cotto, that's all. This is my poem about him

 TAKING A KNEE

The night Miguel retreated, sunk down to his knee,

His face a sorry shocked defeat of bloodied shame

He lost his prime belief – his own invincibility -

A truthless game of swollen tongues and stolen belts

Is not for heroes; pride and preening manliness

Fail the eyes – the eyes will see just what they need,

They’ll dwell on foul false idols, flaunting warrior deceits.

Pa’lante, Miguel Cotto, for the final time, pa’lante,

There were no better men than you

At this blighted playground con

We’re wrong to love and wrong to judge.

Pa’lante, Miguel Cotto, you’re free to go,

A better man than every man who beat you.

Miguel Cotto took a knee to reconfigure dignity,

An unwitting protest against the way

Brute force lost all humanity.

EMMYLOU HARRIS

Just for being everywhere, throughout so many great records, someone who added the colour to so many great songwriters and wrote songs as great as them herself.

DONALD CROWHURST

The story that defines us all, gradually going mad at sea while pretending everything is completely fine and we're winning.

STEPHEN K BUSH

There's no truth and no making sense of this politics anymore, except this guy makes a little bit of sense of it every day, which is a huge relief.

RYAN GIGGS

What's Giggs here for then, as Number 101? So obvious, hardly the point. But Giggs is here as the reminder, if you follow or are interested in a famous person, never to assign to them qualities they don't possess. Giggs became my favourite footballer in the mid 90s, I followed his career closely even though I wasn't a Man Utd fan. I wasn't that interested in him as a person, he seemed a  bit of a blank rogue, but gradually, as his career pushed on, they tried to make him a bit of an icon of normality and steadfast values. Should never have bought it. Didn't really, but ever so slightly. Giggs is still my favourite footballer, as it happens, but don't ever think the people you follow are better in real life than they seem, they'll nearly always be worse. That's my cheery final message.